Cadence's Encounter RTL Compiler adopted by Renesas Micro Systems

“Renesas Micro Systems has been working very closely with Cadence to develop best-in-class netlist analysis flows that provide early insights into potential structural issues and inefficiencies. Encounter RTL Compiler solved a problem we had been grappling with for a long while,” said Kazuyuki Irie, chief professional, SoC Development Division of Renesas Micro Systems. “With our prior flow, we were frustrated with all the additional place-and-route cycles we were burning each time we analyzed and resolved problems with hot spots and routability. The Cadence technology offers us a faster and more cost-efficient way to get to production silicon.”

In today’s ASIC design development, there is an increased demand for ultra large-scale, high speed, and complex designs, and Renesas Micro Systems is focused on high-density layout, high speed, and short turnaround time for its ASIC designs. In the past, it was difficult for company engineers to fix serious routability issues after running place and route tools, resulting in longer turnaround times; if engineers identified hot spots, they were forced to run place and route tools to assist with maximum utilization, adjustment of placement congestion, floorplanning and circuit optimization.

Encounter RTL Compiler is unique in that it enables an environment for the structural analysis of a netlist early in the flow. This allows Renesas Micro Systems engineers to identify problematic structures in their designs before conducting place and route. By applying this methodology, they have been reducing turnaround time and easing congestion hot spots, which allows them to further improve utilization and reduce the die size.

In several ASICs—down to 28 nanometers--that have been manufactured, Renesas Micro Systems has reported overall utilization improved by as much as 15 percent over results from the company’s prior methodology. By leveraging Encounter RTL Compiler, Renesas Micro Systems successfully completed several complex ASIC designs in a shorter period of time with reduced die size.

“Like many other technology companies, Renesas Micro Systems is seeking an edge in time-to-market and cost,” said Dr. Chi-Ping Hsu, senior vice president of research and development, Silicon Realization Group, at Cadence. “As a key technology in the Cadence RTL-to-signoff flow, RTL Compiler offers unique capabilities that can get products to market faster while meeting today’s aggressive die size requirements.”